I get the same questions all the time;

"Should I quit my job and play Poker professionally?"

"Should I drop out of school and just play poker full time?"

 I give the same answer every time: "Unequivocally, absolutely not. No way."

Can I make it any clearer?

If you want to be a professional poker player, start out by doing it part time. Your free time should be spent thinking about poker and learning the game. Read and play and learn.

Just to think about quitting your job to play Poker full time, you have to be making more money in poker than you are in your current job. Don't think that one tournament win is all the evidence you need that you're ready to go pro. You need to be making a consistent profit over a period of at least six months. Only then should you even entertain the notion of becoming a full-time Poker pro.

You should still be wary about taking such a big step. Poker is a great pastime, and it is a lot of fun playing casually. However, when you become a pro, you play poker five or six nights a week. Eventually, playing cards will start to feel a lot like a job. I love every occasion I get to play, but for many people, it can become a daily grind like any other job.

On the Poker circuit, you can play well and still go months, or even years, without making big cash. In ring games, the hours can be torture. When you're a cash-game professional, you want to play when the other players are off of their game. This means starting late, when people are tired and gambling a little more than they should. Typically you’d sit down from 11:00 pm until the morning, and sleep most of the rest of the day. These kinds of hours can be difficult on the body, mind as well as affect your family life.

It can take a lot of self-discipline to put in enough hours at the Poker table. With no set work schedule, you might find it hard force yourself to put in the hours needed at the times that are most profitable.

Before making a drastic change to your life, before you start to ask the questions posed at the beginning of this article, you should know if poker will work for you. You should have lots of profitable periods over the years that serve as evidence of your capabilities. You should have put in enough hours to know whether or not you enjoy the game enough to make it a career, even when it becomes you whole life. Can you endure some long, tough, unlucky stretches financially and mentally?

If you still think you've got what it takes and poker does become your career, I look forward to meeting you across the table.

Chris Ferguson